Our Story
Suya meets shawarma.
Bold Nigerian flavours with global street food energy — cooked to order in Edmonton, Alberta.
Bold Nigerian flavours with global street food energy — cooked to order in Edmonton, Alberta.
Walk through Lagos at night and you will find suya — thin beef threaded onto sticks, dusted heavily in yaji, and grilled over open charcoal until the edges catch. It is loud, peppery food, eaten standing up.
Walk through almost any other city and you will find the shawarma — meat turned slowly on a vertical spit, shaved thin, folded into warm bread with sauce and crunch.
Shovarma Tavern started with a simple question: what happens if you stop treating those as separate traditions? The answer is the food we serve.
Everything turns on the spice blend. Groundnut, ginger, chilli, and a set of things we keep to ourselves — ground down and applied with a heavier hand than most kitchens are comfortable with.
It goes on before the grill, not after. That matters. Applied early, the blend toasts against the charcoal and turns nutty and deep instead of raw and dusty.
We do not tone it down by default. If you want it milder, ask — we will make it milder. But the version we are proud of is the one that tastes like it came off a roadside grill.
A skewer alone is a snack. So there is jollof, cooked down properly until the bottom of the pot does its work. There is fried plantain, sweet against the pepper. There are sides that exist because someone asked for them enough times.
Platters and trays are built for the way people actually eat — shared, in the middle of the table, with everyone reaching. Order for one and it works. Order for fifteen and it works better.
We are an Edmonton kitchen. That shapes things — the portions are honest because the winters are long, and the delivery estimates are estimates because January has opinions about traffic.
Every order is made after you place it. Nothing waits under a lamp. That is the reason the timing moves around on a busy Friday, and it is the trade we would make every time.
Open every day, 11:00 AM to 11:00 PM — including the days most kitchens close.
We are not trying to make Nigerian food easier to like. We are trying to make it easier to find.
Pepper should taste like something, not just hurt. Every blend is built for flavour first — the heat is a consequence, not the goal.
Nothing is pre-plated or held warm. Your food starts when your order does, which is why it takes a few minutes and why it is worth them.
You should not need a second meal after ours. We would rather you leave full than leave impressed by the plating.
A Nigerian kitchen serving a Canadian city, seven days a week, to whoever is hungry at 10:45 on a Tuesday.
The menu is open, the grill is on, and the pepper is not apologising for itself.
See the Menu